Today’s test recipe is Keto Banana Muffins, posted on The Big Man’s World website.by Arman Liew. I have tried several recipes from this site with good results, so when I was searching for a banana bread recipe, this was the obvious choice.

I LOVE banana bread, especially with chocolate chips and pecans, but bananas are a no-no on keto. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), one medium banana has 27 grams of carbs. Most banana bread recipes call for two or three bananas, meaning that the average loaf can have anywhere from about 54 to 81 grams of carbs. If you assume 12 slices per loaf, you are looking at a minimum of 4.5 to 7 carbs per slice. And that doesn’t take into account the carbs in the flour and sugar in the recipe.

An unripe banana has only about 12 grams of carbs (adding only 1 gram of carb per slice), but it lacks the sweetness and flavour of a ripe banana, which is why most banana bread recipes call for ripe or over-ripe fruit.

This Keto banana muffin recipe relies on banana extract for the flavour, eliminating the danger of overloading on carbs. I first got the idea to bake banana muffins after purchasing a keto caramel banana loaf mix from Farm Girl. Though delicious, the mixes are expensive, and I wanted to see if I could find a similar recipe online.

I made these Keto Banana Muffins exactly to recipe specifications with the following modifications:

• My milk of choice was sugar-free vanilla oat milk.
• 1 cup of chocolate chips seemed like a lot so I only put in 2/3 cup.
• I used 1/3 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1/3 Krisda semi-sweet chocolatey chips.
• I substituted pecans for walnuts.

The results were amazing. The muffins were super-moist and really chocolatey. The pecans provided just the right amount of crunch. Though the recipe calls for one whole tablespoon of banana extract, the banana goodness was lost at times, given the other bold flavours, particularly that of the chocolate.

I would absolutely recommend this recipe, and I plan to make them again. I might increment the banana extract by 1/2 tablespoon to see what it does to the recipe next time, but overall, this recipe passes the test kitchen with flying colours.

Note that this is an unsolicited review and I have not received any reimbursements from any of the products, services or websites mentioned in this blog post, nor do I have any affiliations with them.